1702: The first English-language daily newspaper, the London Daily Courant, hits the newsstands, or would have if they had been invented yet.

1785: John McLean is born at Morris County, New Jersey. He will be a candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination in 1856 and 1860, but is best remembered for his U.S. Supreme Court dissenting opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford.

1861: The Constitution of the Confederate States of America is adopted. As it turns out, this is the easy part.

1897: A meteorite explodes in the sky above New Martinsville, West Virginia, causing damage but no injuries.

1927: Samuel Roxy Rothafer opens a new theater in New York City, which he calls the "Roxy."

1936: Future law professor and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (Harvard Law 1960) is born in the Bronx, New York.

1993: Janet Reno (Harvard Law 1963) is sworn in as Attorney General of the United States.

1996: New South Wales solicitor John Winston Howard (Sydney Law 1961) takes office as Australia's 25th prime minister. He's now served longer than 23 of his predecessors.